Menezes' death was 'misfortune'

The officer in charge of the operation which led to the death of Jean Charles de Menezes insisted that none of her team did anything wrong, his inquest heard today.

Deputy assistant commissioner Cressida Dick said the death of Brazilian Mr de Menezes was "an awful tragedy".

Ms Dick, then a commander in the Met Police, oversaw the operation as police officers on the ground tried to establish whether Mr de Menezes was an ontherun suicide bomber the day after the failed attacks on 21 July 2005.

The 27-year-old electrician was shot seven times in the head at point-blank range by two police marksmen after he got on a train at Stockwell Tube station. The officers mistook him for one of the four failed bombers, Hussain Osman.

Ms Dick spoke about the operation when Nicholas Hilliard QC, counsel for the inquest, asked her: "What went wrong?"

She replied: "One thing that clearly went wrong was we, as a nation, did not manage to prevent those attacks on 7 July and the others' attempts on 21 July.

"Mr de Menezes was the victim of terrible and extraordinary circumstances the day afterwards. He was extraordinarily unfortunate to live in the same block as Hussain Osman had been, he was desperately unfortunate to look like Hussain Osman.

"There are some things that happened - the fact that the first surveillance officer was only able to get a relatively short glance. Mr de Menezes waited only a very short time at the bus stop so - I didn't know that at the time - therefore a surveillance officer again would not have a great ability to look at him properly.

"Some of the things Mr de Menezes did in all innocence - the way he behaved, the way he came off the bus - contributed to my assessment of him as a bomber from the day before."

Finally she added that Mr de Menezes had "the great misfortune" of entering the same Tube station that three of the bombers had entered the day before.

"It is an awful tragedy," Ms Dick maintained calmly. "If you asked me whether I think anybody did anything wrong in the operation, I don't think they did."

Ms Dick faced Mr de Menezes's mother during the inquest at the Oval cricket ground. Maria Otone de Menezes, 63, flew in from Brazil to attend the inquest for the first time. Declining to make a statement, the family was ushered in by representatives from the Justice4Jean campaign group.